Humble Beginnings
Humble Beginnings is the debut extended play by Mexican-American rapper Juarense. It was released on July 7, 2017, under the artist name Ale, re-released on July 17, 2017, and lastly released under the artist name Juarense on October 3, 2017, by Juarense Corporation. The EP is completely self-produced. It was supported by three singles: "Goodbye Mexico", "Day One", and "Flex" and two non-album singles: "Flames" and "I Wanna". The EP saw no guest features. The EP was also completely worked on by only Juarense. Background The EP first started out as a mixtape with the same name. For a month, the mixtape was in preproduction and early production. Around March 2017, Juarense scrapped the mixtape and changed the whole idea to an EP, as he thought it would be more professional and more appealing to labels. From January 2017 - June 2017, Juarense attended the Career and Technical Education Academy in Sioux Falls, South Dakota where he was an intern for the Introduction to Media Arts class. There, he was determined to make a mixtape by the name of Humble Beginnings. He made around 25 beats whilst attending CTE; 4 of them would make it to the EP. Juarense's original plan was to make a mixtape that he would send to record labels like Def Jam and Interscope. The mixtape was then changed to an EP when Juarense thought that a "mixtape" sounded too unprofessional. After thinking about it, he realized that's not a bright idea since it's an unsolicited mixtape. Composition Humble Beginnings was written over a time span of 8 months, from November 2016 to June 2017. "Goodbye Mexico" was written in CTE in November 2016. Over the course of 1 1/2 hours, Juarense wrote the song to the already made beat. It was also the first song to be written for the EP. The last song to be written for Humble Beginnings was Humble Beginnings II, which was written from May 24, 2017 to June 30, 2017. Production The production of Humble Beginnings has been dubbed by Juarense as "brassy" and "real." The production of the EP also took place during three different Juarense Production Eras: the "Sample Era" which took place from January 2017 to March 2017. "Ableton Era" which took place from January 2017 to February 2017, the "Remake Era" which took place from March 2017 to March 2017, and the "Brass Era / Humble Beginnings Era" which took place from April 2017 to June 2017. Production for the EP took around five months, starting in January 2017 and ending in May 2017. Four of the six songs were produced in Ableton Live 9. The other two were produced in FL Studio 12. The production consists of lots of brass instruments and drum sets. Recording Recording for Humble Beginnings took place from November 2016 to June 2017. It started when Juarense received a loan from his father to build a home studio. Once the studio was set up, the first song to be recorded was "Goodbye Mexico". The last song to be recorded for the EP was Humble Beginnings II which was recorded on June 29, 2017, right before Juarense went on a family vacation to Chicago. Introduction "Introduction" was recorded on June 21, 2017. The vocals were recorded at Juarense Studios in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. All vocals were recorded using Adobe Audition CC. The vocals feature Juarense's signature passive-aggressive vocal tone. The vocals also feature an electronic-sounding effect added in postproduction. "Introduction" was one of the most time-consuming songs to record for the mixtape. It was also the most Adobe Audition track consuming songs. "Introduction", along with every song on the EP, was recorded using a Shure SM7B microphone. Contrary to most songs on the EP, "Introduction" was recorded in the morning, rather than at night. Day One "Day One" was recorded on March 8, 2017. The vocals were recorded at Juarense Studios in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. All vocals were recorded using Adobe Audition CC. Goodbye Mexico "Goodbye Mexico" was recorded a total of four times. The officially released version was recorded on June 16, 2017. The first version of the song, dubbed the "CTE Version", was recorded at the Career and Technical Academy in Sioux Falls around November 10, 2016. The second version, dubbed the "Studio Version", was recorded at Pulse River Studios in Beresford, South Dakota around November 20, 2017. The "Studio Version" was all done in one take and therefore is, according to Juarense, "awful and rushed." The third version of the song dubbed the "Home Version" was recorded at Juarense Studios in Sioux Falls on December 4, 2016. Juarense did not like the recording and decided to re-record and remaster one last time. Finally, the fourth and final version dubbed the "EP Version", was recorded on June 16 at Juarense Studios. All vocals were recorded using Adobe Audition CC. Juarense has stated that "Goodbye Mexico" was a difficult song to record, not because it required lots of skill and practice, but because the recordings that were made, were not up to par with what Juarense wanted the song to sound like. Flex "Flex" was recorded on May 18, 2017. The vocals were recorded at Juarense Studios in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. All vocals were recorded using Adobe Audition CC. Flex was a difficult song to record according to Juarense. Similarly to "Goodbye Mexico", Flex was recorded more than once. The first take was recorded around April 2017 and was scrapped due to the vocal tone not matching what Juarense intended for the song. The originally recorded chorus was extremely subpar and needed to be re-recorded. Humble Beginnings II "Humble Beginnings II" was recorded on July 1, 2017. The vocals were recorded at Juarense Studios in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. All vocals were recorded using Adobe Audition CC. "Humble Beginnings II" was the last song recorded for the EP. It was one of the easiest songs to record as well. Recording the song took around one hour. Fuck the Police "Fuck the Police" was recorded on June 29, 2017. The vocals were recorded at Juarense Studios in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. All vocals were recorded using Adobe Audition CC. Fuck the Police was the second to last song to be recorded for the EP. It was also, in Juarense's personal opinion, the easiest song to record. Whereas other songs would require many, many takes for just one line, all of Fuck the Police was recorded in five takes. The recording for Fuck the Police was also very rushed, as the song was recorded just days before Juarense's family would go on vacation. The song features a relaxed/aggressive vocal tone. Subject matter & lyrics Humble Beginnings centers, for the most part, around Juarense's life. The songs on the EP serve as an autobiography. Half of the songs match the autobiographical theme. The songs that match the theme are "Introduction", "Goodbye Mexico", and "Humble Beginnings II". Introduction "Introduction" focuses on introducing Juarense to the public since he is relatively unknown. The first line of the song is "I should probably introduce myself since none of you know me." Juarense goes on to talk about his life as a whole. Subjects talked about in the song include Juarense's car, his social and sexual life, hobbies, place of work, where he lives, and his rap skills. Juarense started writing the lyrics around December 15, 2017, while taking his French class semester test senior year. The bars "Let's begin, I'm Mexican, ain't been thin since 19," to "And I’m only 17, listening to good shit since my early teens" and "Go hide, I'm so irate," to "I’ll be sitting here waiting for someone to endorse me," were written when Juarense was sitting there, bored, after finishing the test. The rest of the lyrics were written around May 2017. Day One "Day One" doesn't have a theme. It's a song about nothing. Its only purpose is to "talk shit." Throughout the song, Juarense says a lot of controversial things. The song was made to "piss people off" and to "offend people." The lyrics are unique in that they are the most vulgar in the entire project, although offensive and controversial lyrics are nothing new to Juarense and are routine. Day One is also unique in that there are three different versions of "Day One," the "Original Version," the "2.0 Version," and the "EP Version." The Original "Day One" was extremely controversial and featured very offensive lyrics. The Original version was written back in 2013 when Juarense was 13 years old. The 2.0 version featured Promotion Release Humble Beginnings went through three different releases. The first release was on July 7, 2017. The second release was on July 17, 2017. The third and final release was on October 3, 2017, on all major online stores including iTunes, Google Play, and Amazon and on all major streaming services including Apple Music and Spotify. First Release Humble Beginnings was originally scheduled to be released on June 3, 2017, but was delayed for various reasons. For one, Juarense couldn't finish the EP on time. He picked the date randomly without even having started on it. A week before the release, he only had two songs finished: Day One and Goodbye Mexico. All songs except Fuck the Police had been produced but lyrics had not yet been written and recording had not started. The day before the expected release, the EP was pushed back a month. On July 7, 2017, the EP was "released" on Genius and Juarense Corporation's official website. The EP was released under the artist name "Ale". Second Release The EP was finally finished on June 29, 2017, and was sent out for distribution. The distributor selected was Record Union. Expected delivery of the EP to online music stores was 3-7 days but after 2 weeks, the EP was never distributed. After days of anger and frustration, Juarense instead tried LANDR and the EP was finally released on July 17, 2017, a whole 10 days after the intended release date. Due to misunderstandings between Juarense and LANDR's release requirements, this version features unmastered tracks. The EP was released under the artist name "Ale". Third Release On September 20, 2017, Juarense changed his artist name to "Juarense" and decided to re-release Humble Beginnings under the newly adopted name. It was submitted to LANDR on October 2, 2017, and arrived to digital music stores the next day, October 3, 2017. This version featured the mastered tracks. = Tracklist # "Introduction" | Written by Alejandro Yanez | Produced by Juarense | Length: 3:37 # "Day One" | Written by Alejandro Yanez | Produced by Juarense | Length: 3:23 # "Goodbye Mexico" | Written by Alejandro Yanez | Produced by Juarense | Length: 4:17 # "Flex" | Written by Alejandro Yanez | Produced by Juarense | Length: 3:46 # "Humble Beginnings II" | Written by Alejandro Yanez | Produced by Juarense | Length: 3:55 # "Fuck the Police" | Written by Alejandro Yanez | Produced by Juarense | Length: 3:37 Booklet Category:Music Category:EPs